Thursday, 24 May 2012

MIR

Mir (which can mean both peace and world) was a Soviet (and later
Russian) orbital station. Mir was humanity's first consistently
inhabited long-term research station in space, and the first 'third
generation' type space station, constructed over a number of years with a
modular design.
Mir currently holds the record for longest continuous human presence
in space at eight days short of 10 years, and, through a number of
collaborations, was made internationally accessible to cosmonauts and
astronauts of many different countries. The most notable of these, the
Shuttle-Mir Program, saw American Space Shuttles visiting the station
eleven times, bringing supplies and providing crew rotation. Mir was
assembled in orbit by successively connecting several modules, each
launched separately from 1986 to 1996.
The station existed until 23 March 2001, at which point it was
deliberately de-orbited, breaking apart during atmospheric re-entry over
the South Pacific Ocean.